How to get rid of mud fever

Oh you guys. By the end of my life, if I keep going by this rate, I can probably call myself a veterinarian. I’ve completely lost count of how many pages I’ve read about mud fever(Mok) and grease heels.

I started off reading Dutch websites, but for some reason the Dutch can’t seem to agree on anything mud fever so you’ll find 50 different answers. So I decided to check out the English and the American, luckily their slightly more updated on this topic. So here is my Do’s and Dont’s.

DO’s

Wash the heels one time only with anti bacterial shampoo. Make sure you clean your hands in between switching legs. Mud fever transfers easily from one to another. Once done, dry legs completely. Don’t repeat this more than once.

Keep the legs dry at all costs. Grumpy had to stay inside for two weeks to be able to battle it. If they have to get wet, make sure you dry them at least once a day. Bacteria’s thrive when the legs are wet.

Use a cream or spray with Sulphur(zwavel) in it. Sulphur kills bacteria’s and stimulates growth of the skin. And keep on putting it on. Day and night if needed. Not doing it will mean one step back.

Make sure the stable is as clean as possible. Pee and poop are bacteria’s best friends. Especially pee is extremely bad for mud fever.

Use mud fever pills and vitamins to fight the mud fever from within.

Go on short walks with your Horse to keep the bloodstream going as this will help with recovery time.

DONT’s

People seem to think you need to scratch of the scabs(kortsjes). DONT. They will fall off in due time if you treat it correctly. The only thing you do by scratching is making wounds and hurting your Horse immensely.

Do not put your hand in the pot of cream and smear all four legs in one go. The only thing you do by doing that is transferring the mud fever from one leg to another. Clean your hands before moving to the next leg.

Don’t put cream on a half dry leg. Then your only locking the bacteria’s in and your horse will probably be worse the next day.

Don’t be lazy. Mud fever is not fixed in one day, but if you keep being lazy and don’t clean, dry and smear the legs it will never go away and only get worse.

It’s really not rocket science. Keeping dry, kill the bacteria’s and smearing is all it needs.

So in my fight against mud fever, I tried out several products and some ended up working really well. Links to shops in the name.

Frama – Easy mok spray

This is a pure Sulphur spray and was the only thing I felt truly penetrated the scabs and removed them. The spray itself is useless so i poured it into a cloth and used that instead. It’s cheap and works really well. E

This cream contains a lot of great ingredients against mud fever like Sulphur, tea tree oil, msm+++ It’s very easy to smear and I feel like it penetrates the scabs well. It’s a lot more liquidy then a normal cream so the only issue was that because grumpy stands on shavings these would easily get stuck to his legs and they would become very dirty. This cream can be used prematurely throughout the whole year and keeps the dirt out as it’s “waterproof”.The pot seems very expensive, but it’s huge.

Last , but not least Grumpy got pills against the mud fever. I can’t say for sure if these helped, but I did feel the recovery went quicker once I started giving them. Online you can find loads of raving reviews about them.

If you are battling the same thing, good luck. If you have never had it, be quick if your horse ends up getting it. It will save you a lot of heartache and money.